This is the third and final episode of our book club on Lee Child's first novel Killing Floor, the novel that introduced Jack Reacher. As always with the book club, there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. I will also be reading some quotes I highlighted from Reacher Said Nothing by Andy Martin, a book I'm reading in parallel in which Andy Martin watches Lee Child write a Jack Reacher novel.

For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichs, fellow PhD student in the same lab that I'm in.

Podcast links

Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Koen's links

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=E65Fv74J0ywC
Twitter: https://twitter.com/koenfused

Ben's links

Website: www.bjks.page/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bjks_tweets

References
Jocko Willink's video 'GOOD': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdTMDpizis8
The Guardian article on not dating people who like Reacher: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/06/i-couldnt-be-with-someone-who-liked-jack-reacher-can-our-taste-in-books-help-us-find-love

[This is an automated transcript with many errors]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] So this is now the fifth and final episode of our discussion of Lee Child's Killing Floor. Almost said Jack Reach's Killing Floor.

Koen Frolichs: Yep.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, Lee Child's killing Floor. Oh wait, I wanted to make up something about you. Uh, I think the closest I can get, no, you know, like a book that not only introduced Jack Richer to the World, but also, and I think the closest I can say here is maybe we we'll solve this problem.

Yeah. Made Kota 20 years ago, randomly set at the dinner table. You know, what's the problem with the US dollar?

Koen Frolichs: Yes.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah, I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe, maybe it didn't. Maybe we'll

Koen Frolichs: find

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: out. Yeah. Keep listening.

Koen Frolichs: That's what I would say.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Ko did some investigative journalism by asking his dad

Koen Frolichs: deep, deep invest.

Yeah. Yeah. I was like, belling Cat 0.2.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Uh, I guess as always, [00:01:00] we can probably start with a summary, right?

Koen Frolichs: Let's do that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So chapter 27, Reacher reads about a bookshelf worth of banking journals in about two hours, and figures out that the CLS are reprinting $1 bills into a hundred dollars bills. Reach and Finley drive to dollars parents and find about $200,001 bills in the garage.

Chapter 28, rich and Finley tell Pika all about the crime. They wait for him to get Roscoe, but he returns alone and points a gun at Finley.

Koen Frolichs: Oh, that's a sound effect.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's a good sound effect.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Huh?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like people probably think it's a professional sound effect. I had,

Koen Frolichs: you looked at me very shocked when I did it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like, what's going on?

Koen Frolichs: What the fuck? Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, chapter 29, P and Kleiner take reacher and it should be Finley, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Captive. Okay. Then I just wrote down the wrong name. So they take Reacher and [00:02:00] Finley captive. They have Roscoe and Charlie Hubble plus her kids somewhere else. They give reacher an ultimatum to find Hubble or they'll start killing Finley and Roscoe and the children, et cetera.

Chapter 30 Reach has breakfast at Enos and makes a plan. He kills Bika and the two guys following him chapter 31, reaches searches for and finds hobble. They drive back to Mulgrave and free Finley from the police station. Chapter 32, richer. Hobble and Finley hide in the barbershop and make plans richer, meets the barber's sister who tells richer that the guitar player was killed 62 years ago by Mayor Thiel's dad.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Chapter 33. So now it starts. Now it goes down. Finley collects a weapon from the police station. Richer. Finley and Hubble set the police station on fire. They drive to the warehouse, kill Baker, and get the Hubble kids out of there. Finley sets the warehouse on fire, [00:03:00] richer, kills Teo and Kleiner. Pika turns up and reach and Finley kill him.

Finally, before the entire warehouse bursts into huge flames, millions of dollars flying. I think that's what I wrote.

Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Is it all one chapter?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. That's all one chapter. That's, oh, wow. All one chapter.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Damn. Okay. I was, I was, in my head it was like at least three chapters, but Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That, that was chapter 33.

I think it was 20 pages or something. I think it was a longer one. The

Koen Frolichs: longer

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: one, but

Koen Frolichs: yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: still, yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Everything went down in one chapter. Okay. Go on.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yep. Sorry. That's what I meant. Like it all goes down. Yeah. Chapter 34, rich and Roscoe talk everything through then for what one can only assume is the first time of his life richer, quote, made love with great tenderness, end quote, naturally richer, then takes a bus to California with a photo of his brother that Roscoe gave him.

Koen Frolichs: Beautiful.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: The end,

Koen Frolichs: the, the end,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: the ending

Koen Frolichs: and, and some people lived happily Afro after a lot of people died. [00:04:00]

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Those who survived, I think lived fairly happily ever after everyone else died, which is naturally when you say those who survived, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Obviously, everyone else didn't.

Koen Frolichs: Through. Whew.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Where should we begin?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,

Koen Frolichs: how do we, do we have the predictions in our, um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: oh yeah. That's the weird thing. I never, I've, I've realized, so I was, this week I spent some time editing the Crime and punishment thing.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I realized like, we never go back to the predictions.

Koen Frolichs: Oh, okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: We kind of predict something, but we never, I mean, I guess like, you know, this isn't a scientific experiment where we preregister and they go back to.

See that was true. We're just kind of guessing and trying to make sense of the thing. But I think we, um, I mean we got most of it pretty good, I'd say from the last part. Right, right. Your theory was a hundred percent correct.

Koen Frolichs: It was spot on. Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly. Your slash maybe your father's. We'll see.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I think the only thing is like that Pika was the bad guy.

I [00:05:00] didn't, I thought it was like Charlie Hubble a bit more. That's what I expected.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I got my final fight, see, unexpectedly. I got my final fight scene between Pika and Richard.

Koen Frolichs: That's 'cause I was like, oh wow. He just kills him. He just shoots him in the head or whatever. Right. He shot him. Yeah. And then he left and I was like, oh, that's truly what, not what Ben, you know?

Exactly. That would happen. And then, you know, we still get it in the end. He survived.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So I guess, I mean, I, I, I, if I remember correctly, I wasn't super confident that pick, I mean, we didn't really know. We thought like one, someone has to have said something, but we didn't know which for three.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

There's still one person who's the mall or whatever, right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, if I remember correctly, I didn't have any. I don't think I particularly singled out Pika.

Koen Frolichs: Ah, okay. I thought so. Okay. I could,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well, did I, I mean, I, I, I was still hoping for the, but I'm not sure how much I thought it was gonna happen.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember. Maybe I did, doesn't matter. Uh, it doesn't matter if I'm wrong. If I was correct, then I obviously predicted it all along.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, it's true.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I can't [00:06:00] remember. I mean, obviously, I mean, this wasn't really a prediction. I've read other books, so obviously Richa and, uh, Roscoe don't, and I mean, to be fair, maybe they, they would be still together.

Book two. I didn't read book two, but yeah. That was pretty obvious that that was not gonna happen.

Koen Frolichs: Sure, sure, sure, sure. But it could have happened. You're right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, cha uh, Hubble was still alive.

Koen Frolichs: Hubble was alive,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that one.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Which

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess wasn't that much of a stretch. Again,

Koen Frolichs: it kind of had to happen at some point.

Like, you know, when they, when they go and have to find Hubble, you know, he has to be alive kind of Right. At that point,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, I could've imagined how Rich out just has to figure something else out or whatever.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, true.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And in a way, they didn't, they didn't find hub. I mean, they found it. Yeah. It, but they just killed everyone anyway.

Like it didn't really make much of a difference.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Right. You're

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: right. Or wait, did it, why did they find hobo? Why did he actually look for hobo? I can't remember.

Koen Frolichs: No, he, he, he, so he killed Pika every day. Everyone, then he moved on to this city and then he found him in this hotel.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. But why? I can't remember.

Like, what was the, why didn't he just go and kill everyone? Be like he killed them [00:07:00] anyway. Right. Like, it's not like he showed them Hubble and then

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think he might've needed Hubble for information or something that I can't remembers. True.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I'd imagine. But I think he knew where the warehouse was.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I guess they didn't got a third person to

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I just, the

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: kids out of there, but

Koen Frolichs: yeah. And get hub to like ram the police station with his Bentley.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, yeah, yeah. Which, yeah, that was a bit weird. But, um, also that, like, I took a hell of a beating going into three, like driving against a wall basically in a row.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, it makes you wonder, right? I mean, I guess those old bandies, they were heavy and made out of like, I don't know, like steel or aluminum, but guess

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: they didn't have like the best safety pro. I mean, you have mass behind, if you collide into another car for that, it's great. But if you're fighting a wall

Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah.

Walls in general, uh, a bit. Yeah. Bit tougher.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I tend to win.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But

I,

Koen Frolichs: well, I mean, it's still right. Anyway. [00:08:00]

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, I had another point that some stuff, which I thought was just, so, some stuff was unrealistic. I thought in a, who cares way and some stuff was unrealistic in a slightly disappointing way.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. So, so, so gimme your stuff.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I thought chapters 30 and 31, which are the chapters where Rich has just been held, you know, he's, his PIKA is driving him to different places and that to get hobble. Yeah. So basically him killing Pika and the other two guys and Rich are finding hobble. And I guess then also the driving into the police thing, it struck me as just slightly, yeah, just, just unrealistic in a way that I thought wasn't, that MA may made it slightly worse.

So for example, the, I mean, in a way it's, I mean I, well first I guess I didn't kill Pika, but it, that seemed to, I mean, it was fairly smart, but it seemed a little bit too easy.

Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then you think like a guy like Ika would. You know, what's up? Like he'd, he'd do, he'd take whatever precaution was then again, maybe, you know, pick [00:09:00] our trusted richer, because he figured like, well, what's he gonna do?

Like, he has to give me safe. So maybe he just trusted him too much. Yeah. But then the other thing, this was something I found quite funny in chapter 30 is, you know, so they're, they're, they're having this massive gun fight with this big gun. Right? This, this desert eagle, this extra big

Koen Frolichs: Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. That, whatever it's called.

Yeah. That, that huge gun and all these people on the street just going, yay free money. Whilst these guys are just shooting each other in the background, like, yeah,

Koen Frolichs: but it's America. They might be used to it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes. Okay. Whatever.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, whatever. It's, it's a dollar bills.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But I found that, I thought that was like, you know, I thought that was a bit.

If you, especially this was supposed to be the big gun that was made so much noise and that kind of stuff. And

Koen Frolichs: you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't think about it like that. Just

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: people running around like woo, money.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I guess

Koen Frolichs: that's right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then also him finding hobel.

Koen Frolichs: I found that a little bit of a stretch.

Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I mean, to be fair, so this [00:10:00] is the, I mean, there's just too many things. Get him getting the fake name correct.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Everything.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Him getting the place.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: All that kinda stuff. I mean, of course he narrowed it down. He didn't get it straight away, all that kinda stuff.

Koen Frolichs: Sure. But still, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But this is the kind of scene that I think Chard got better at doing.

So, you know, he uses or. Richa uses this kind of common sense making educated guesses.

Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Which is, I guess, a staple of all detective or crime novels almost. But I think here it didn't quite work, but I think in later books it works better.

Koen Frolichs: Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Where maybe in this case also he really put himself a bit into a spot.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I guess so.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But, uh, him as a writer basically, that he had to find the sample guy somehow without any information. But this is, this is the kind of scene where I thought it like, oh yeah, I can see how Lee Chart got a bit smoother. Just making those a bit more realistic, those educated guesses.

Koen Frolichs: Sure, sure.

Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And then, I mean, you know, the ending is of course just huge e bombastic in a, but in a glorious way. I didn't [00:11:00] mind that that was unrealistic.

Koen Frolichs: Um, yeah, no, it kind of has to be. Yeah. Or like, has to be, but yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. That was, yeah, I did, I I had no problem with that being unrealistic, but, uh.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I guess bombastic is the right word for this.

Um, I mean, and that, that's, I think, you know, everything happens in the last chapter or in this one chapter, which is kind of funny, right. Because the whole conclusion kind of happened and then you're kind of done with it almost, right. Then it's the last chapter. Oh, wow. Yeah. I just, I just found it so funny 'cause it seemed to go so very fast.

But I guess that's just any general action flick or, or, or novel,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and I guess that's how you make it work, right? You,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, I guess

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so. It's, yeah. I mean, I guess lots of stuff happened before, but I think that's kind of the, I would imagine the aim, right? You try and get like everything into the end.

Koen Frolichs: Everything built into this one climax. Yeah, I guess

so.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. And then it just, you release all the tension basically in one.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. Yeah. Okay. Do you have more?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, that was just like one, the one point about unrealistic [00:12:00] stuff. Uh, I dunno, do you wanna I have like a, a few other points about completely different things.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. So I have, um, I can like latch into that. I looked up to Desert Eagle. Uh, yeah. My, my work browsing history has gotten just a little worse because I, I literally looked a desert Eagle in American currency. Okay. Yeah. So, um, if some men will come by at the office, you know, why the Desert Eagle? So I was kind of confused why, or like, because when he's, um, with pecan, the two guys who follow him, reacher shoots of the guy's leg with, uh, with the Desert Eagle, right.

He blows off his leg and I was like, Hmm, can that happen? So I Googled. Wait,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: was it literally blows off or was it more

like

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I think so. I think he,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: he just like made it not functional.

Koen Frolichs: I think he said he literally blew it off below the knee.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, okay.

Koen Frolichs: Um, so I looked up Cand eagle Blow of Limb.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh God. Could

Koen Frolichs: the great

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: people, I mean, I feel like, I feel like the p whoever's watching your search, his [00:13:00] history at some point's just gonna go, you know what, just let him, this is interesting. I wanna know what you search for next.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They have like bats in their office at things.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly.

What do you think he is gonna do this today? It's like, uh, I don't know.

Koen Frolichs: He's so unpredictable. He's so

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: unpredictable. I mean, he has to do something about animals soon, but

Koen Frolichs: ah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. We should check like the betting sites, whether there's anything on there yet.

Koen Frolichs: True. Yeah. Yeah. Let's have a look. So anyways, um, the dart Eagle is not going to blow off limbs.

That's what I found on Quora. Um, there was a guy said when someone

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: asked that question.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, no. Yeah. A lot of people like also like in response

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: to this book or.

Koen Frolichs: No, no, no. Just general. General. Um, people are very interested in the Desert Eagle. Um, I can also tell you it comes in a gold edition with 24 car gold, um, I guess plated.

It's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: pretty good.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. And there was also a guy who asked, if you get shot in the head with it, will you die? And then people agreed, yes, yes, you will die if you get shot.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: If you

Koen Frolichs: get

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: shot in the head.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: With a very large weapon, you die.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was like, okay, satisfied. [00:14:00] Um, I have little

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's

Koen Frolichs: good to know.

So yeah. But I think also, especially in the hands and the limbs, um, it would just blow a hole, I think. I think the hole will be bigger in your body because there's more expansion that can go on inside your body from the bullet. Something like that. I don't know.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Somehow that makes vague sense to me, but I don't

Koen Frolichs: know

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: why.

Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, same. Um, and then if you wanna buy a Desert Eagle, it will cost you about 800 to like $1,500.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's not that much.

Koen Frolichs: No. Right. Yeah. And it's an expensive gun. You shouldn't buy it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: How much your guns usually cost. I've never. Even

Koen Frolichs: looked at. Okay. Okay. So I did, um, this is from the top of my memory, so it can be a bit off.

Um, standard issue, police guns are like six, 700 euro, uh, dollars.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, so not that much different than the, does it, I guess? Well,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, I guess it does. It is like about twice as much. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,

Koen Frolichs: and it's really heavy. It's like almost two kilos. Um, so it's unpractical and like, um, that's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: pretty heavy. Yeah, yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I have like cameras, right? And like my, I have a big [00:15:00] lens on one of the, that weighs, I dunno how much, but yeah, two kilograms is quite a bit to carry on with the audio.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. So that's also what they say, right? Training it, especially for like smaller people or like, you know, or women, like, it's really hard to aim this thing properly because it's just so heavy.

So, um, especially in general, especially

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: if you have to hold it for like longer times, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I guess the people on Quora kind of agreed, um, the Desert Eagle is not the, the best suited weapon. It's more like a, a showpiece at the gun range,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: right? But, uh, it makes sense that that reacher wouldn't have problems.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, he can handle it. Yeah. 'cause he's a big strong guy. Yeah. Um, so that's that post-it note. Oh. Um, to complete tangent. So I saw like a clip on YouTube about this guy. Um, he's got the, um, he's playing the Punisher in, um, on like this series. The film? Yeah. No, in series.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay.

Koen Frolichs: It's like Marvel's the Punisher, one of those comic book

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: things.

I've heard of failure of it, but

Koen Frolichs: yeah. Okay. And I looked him up 'cause I was like, oh, he's a big strong, like tall, you know, mus [00:16:00] muscly guy. Right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Is he like a meter 75 or something?

Koen Frolichs: 180, which is like not tall. And I was so funny 'cause he looks very tall and strong and then, you know, so he's fighting, you know, other tiny people.

I'm taller than That's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: exactly what Lee Child said, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, exactly. Actors, that's, the actors are

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: tiny.

Koen Frolichs: That's the thing. 'cause he looks like, I think he's like the stereotypical, I, I think, what's his name? John. I looked him up like yesterday. John Al or something like that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Good to know. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: And he looks big and tall and strong.

And he probably is very strong. He's big at least, or like, you know, muscular, um, which, yeah, 180. So not, you know, I would say like average height, I mean

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: height in,

Koen Frolichs: yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: At least Germany or Netherlands. Yeah. Uh,

Koen Frolichs: where? No, no. Dutch shirt taller.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: 180 2 or what? Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: 83. Um, yeah. Okay. Sorry, that was my tangent.

Desert eagle will not blow if you like.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. That's good. But, uh, so just about the height of actors, um, I mean like when you think about like, who are like some of the tough actors, right? Yeah. Like one of the first names is Jason Statham. Right? But he was also a, a, was [00:17:00] he like Olympic diver? Junior, junior Olympic diver.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: If you're a diver, you're not tall. You are, you are very tiny basically. Right. Think if you do anything that's I think so with flipping itself, gymnastics or flipping Right. You're by definition tiny. If he was good at that thing, he can't be taller than Yeah. Maybe 75 or something. Right.

Koen Frolichs: That's true.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno how tall he is.

But he can't

Koen Frolichs: be, be Jason sad. 1 78.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. So I guess he can be taller than 1 75.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But um, maybe that's why he never made it to the actual Olympics. I don't know.

Koen Frolichs: It's probably, yeah, probably. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Just too big.

Koen Frolichs: Too big.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But that's what I mean, right? He's like one of the tough guys and he's Yeah. Below average, right?

Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. Or

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: maybe not in the uk. I don't know, but

Koen Frolichs: Oh, actually, oh no, actually. Um, so when I was like doing my exhaustive, exhaustive research, they recasted Jack Reacher, um, for a series now as well. Oh

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, yeah.

Koen Frolichs: I forgot the name of the guy. I didn't know him.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Is he taller than a meter 70?

Actually

Koen Frolichs: I did, I didn't look this up. [00:18:00]

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm gonna look this up now. Oh God. The first name is is Jim Chad, which is a great name for someone. I dunno whether this is the correct one though. Oh no, that guy is also pretty old. I think this is something else. Oh, no, Jack Rich. No, this might be it after all. Chief Morrison.

Yeah, I think they're actually making the first,

Koen Frolichs: oh, they're making killing

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: soul. So there's a guy called Alan Richon. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Richon. Yeah. That could be it. That could be it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Richon. He looks vaguely tough. Oh yeah, he is. 6 2 1 meter 88.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. Getting there. Okay. Yeah, they're getting taller.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway.

Koen Frolichs: Actually, let me, let me finish the weapons department.

Um, I also looked up the blackjack or the sap 'cause I was kind of skeptical of a blackjack, you know, like this, this sort of blackjack. Was this weapon richer, used to kill the Kleiner kit and the, the henchman

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: kind of club thing that, well, he didn't kill the Kliner kit with it, right? He drowned.

Koen Frolichs: No, no, no.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He just made them unconscious.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: By hitting on the back of the head. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: The thing is, the thing is like, [00:19:00] what is it, like 15 centimeters long? Something like that. Or like, let's say between 15 and like 30, whatever. And it's like kind of a spring with a heavy lead end or that's the blackjack and then the, the sap is more like a leather pouch with a heavy, um, lead ending.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay,

Koen Frolichs: 10, like 15 centimeters long. And I was really curious if you can really like damage.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, sure,

Koen Frolichs: right, but like if

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you're a boxer, you can just hit someone in the face and hit them unconscious,

Koen Frolichs: right? Well, actually, um, yeah, you can, but actually I also, okay, so I went on a complete tension. Of course there's also weighted gloves, um, for punching, knocking people out easier.

Anyway, so the, the sap and the blackjack are, sorry. They're very dangerous. Just a

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: random piece of information in case anyone's curious.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. I'm very, so, yeah, no, I think

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: people are, why not, are these gloves, do they, do they make them so they look normal?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, but they're weighted.

So you, you protect your own hand from fracture. Right. If you had like skull, but also it adds weight

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: behind it.

Koen Frolichs: [00:20:00] Kinetic, yeah. Energy. Yeah. And, but yeah, the sapin, the blackjack very dangerous, can break bones. Like they can fracture your skull.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, okay. So

Koen Frolichs: cops stopped using them at some point.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Ah, now they shoot them.

I get it.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's way more effective. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, that's my, uh, my tangent on fact. Okay. But, so that was

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: correct then

Koen Frolichs: I would say so, yeah. I would say the, the, the Desert Eagle was slightly exaggerated maybe, but the blackjack was, um, you know, food on the money.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, I once, uh, I can't remember when, why or what it was, but I saw some sort of interview with Lee Child and he.

I think he said something like, you know, I, I, I do do research for this and I get experts to help me with this, but there's always someone who complains about something. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like I think once he said literally he, he literally went to like a guns expert or whatever and confirmed something and then someone wrote him in like, this is wrong.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Koen Frolichs: Of course, yeah, of course.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, of

Koen Frolichs: course.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But you know, you Googled for five minutes, you're basically an expert. [00:21:00]

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, no, but yeah, but that's how it is. I'm sorry, Mr. Child.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, the book, should I say then on a more positive note, one of my, maybe one of the best is to summarize, I think the appeal of the Jack er books.

Uh, just to set the scene very briefly. I think he's talking to Hubble. Yeah. He just found Hubble or whatever, and I guess he had to tell him, he told him what they had to do or something like that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Hubble was like, oh fuck, here we go. Heck, I'm not prepared for this. But yeah, he, er just told him all this stuff.

And then, so here's the, the quote from the book. The first word is he referring to Hubble. He nodded again. He had crashed through the barrier. He had stopped worrying and started relaxing. He was up on that plateau where you just did whatever needed doing. I knew that place. I lived there. And I think that's part of a big part of the appeal of reach that you have this guy who's just in the zone and kind of ready all the time.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And also what I, you know, I mentioned [00:22:00] this to you like a while ago when I read other Jack Cher books, what I find really interesting is that he has this almost like meditative monk like quality where he just, he doesn't worry about things.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You know, like there's another book that I, you know, I read and he wants to get from A to B and he's in the middle of a forest basically with like some country road going through it.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And he just goes, okay, I'm just gonna walk now. Yeah. So he walks and pulls his thumb out. There's no thought of like, ah. I'm gonna be hungry, I'm gonna be thirsty. What am I'm gonna do? How that, he's just, okay,

Koen Frolichs: yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm here.

Koen Frolichs: This, yeah, this

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: one I'm burning. This is what I'm doing.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I think that's a big part, and no matter what the situation, right?

Mm-hmm. Whether he's somehow dropped off in the middle of the woods, whether he's fighting three people or whether he's just having drinking coffee or whatever.

Koen Frolichs: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: He's just in the zone. And I think that's a big, I think when I read the other books, I realized like, I need more of that in my life.

Like I need to be more in your personal life more. Yeah. Yeah. Just personally, [00:23:00] like I'm too much thinking about the future, worrying about stuff and not enough, just this is what it is.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. End of end of thought, basically, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's living in a moment. Isn't that almost? Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.

Koen Frolichs: What do we call this?

Um. Mindfulness.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I dunno whether zen is the right word for this, because I don't really know what it means, but I, yeah, it's something I, I mean, you know, I, I dunno anything about it, but, um, no, no, no. I get it. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: This is the kind of thing that it sounds like to me, just this guy, he, in a really weird way, has almost achieved, I think what lots of people try and achieve with lots of techniques and meditation and whatever, which is just existing and doing stuff.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And observing.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But not this kind of constant worrying about things or whatever.

Koen Frolichs: Sure. Yeah. You know, you're right, you're right. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And the thing is like, everyone knows those moments, right? When you like huble when you realize like, oh, I have to be, I have to be in this moment now.

Koen Frolichs: [00:24:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then you don't, you don't have this thing of like worrying, right. If you realize like. This is the only way I'll get through. Let's do this.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and

Koen Frolichs: get through with it. Yeah, you're right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly. So I think everyone knows those moments, but, uh, the, the difficulties, having them more frequently.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. Just like overriding that, that, that negativity or that doubt or whatever. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I mean, what I did, what I did really like about it, and I also said this in a previous session, I think, is that he's still human though, right? So they walked through PI cars or like to his car.

You know, um, getting Hubble and then he, he says something, um, it's his inner monologue is something like, I've never been this nervous before.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. I can't remember exactly, but yeah.

Koen Frolichs: He's like, I've never been this nervous before. Um, I really have to like, find a way to calm down and that's like kind of cool, right?

I mean, like, you know, um, yeah. Yeah. Like of course like if there's like a big FVI agent with a, you know, gun and hand, hand combat skills, like [00:25:00] you, you're gonna be nervous. But like, even if he admits it, like, I'm nervous right now, but I have to deal with it. Right. That's the cool,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think that's the kind of thing that, I think I've mentioned this before, that I think he kind of loses in later books.

Koen Frolichs: Oh, okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's interesting that you like that, and I understand. I like that. Yeah. I get it completely. But from the other two, three books I've read, I can't, I mean, the first, yeah, I can't remember the first one that much, but from the others, I can't remember.

Koen Frolichs: Ah, too. Okay. I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: don't remember. Oh, no, I don't remember him having, he was much more analytic.

Just what's, what are the options? Yeah. What are the probabilities? Which one should I do?

Koen Frolichs: Hmm. Okay. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But No, I agree. This is, yeah, because he's, he obviously is still human, but he just manages to

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. He deals with stuff, right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. In a, in a argue a good way. Yeah, that's true. Okay. That's too bad.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes. So in a way, I think there's lots, uh, there's stuff about Rachel that's questionable. Um, yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I love that. Even, I can't remember if this is this part of the [00:26:00] previous one, but at some point he just tells Roski what's happened. She's like, Jesus. Yeah, it's a bit much.

Koen Frolichs: Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Like he'd, he had this, or I think even maybe just one of the, maybe to Finley or whatever, and I think it might be in maybe this part of something where, where he just tells what happens and they're like, right.

Um, I think you have crossed a line here.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. That's a lot of dead people. Oh, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But apart from, uh, that aside, all the murdering mm-hmm. And the, probably enjoying, murdering, setting that aside. Yeah. Uh, he has a lot of positive qualities.

Koen Frolichs: He's a, he's a great role model. Role model. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it's, you know, you, you pick and choose, you know, you can't admire someone for everything they do and yeah.

So. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: No, that's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: true in this case. You know, you choose what you take from this

Koen Frolichs: and you, and you move

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: on. I hope, given, given your Google search, I think we can see where you are going.

Koen Frolichs: No, I think, but

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, no, I, I, I, I, I still think kind of the, the kind who runs [00:27:00] away rather than nce. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but then again, so far in your life, you haven't had the Desert Eagle.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I think it's good. I think I, I couldn't deal with the, the power You would be getting a lot. You would be getting lunch for me every day. I would be like, Hey, Ben, go get lunch. You see this eagle?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm kind of hungry.

Koen Frolichs: Kind of hungry. And get me a coke as well, you know?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: That's, yeah. I, I, yeah, that's me.

I mean,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so you wouldn't kill me. You'd just use, you basically blackmail me, kind of, if you don't do this, I'll kill you.

Koen Frolichs: Is that, is that blackmail? Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's, yeah, it's already

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: black.

Koen Frolichs: It's not even blackmail. Right. It's just, it's just

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: threatening.

Koen Frolichs: It's just threatening. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of like, you know, we all had, I mean, I assume we all had like daydreams of, you know, sitting bored in school.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, god,

Koen Frolichs: good. No, no, no. When you're bored in school, right. Or whatever. Right. Or like, you [00:28:00] know, in a, in a meeting and you're like, what would I do if like, you know, a guy comes in with a gun now, right? Would I be able to save the room? Right. You, you, you

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: answer No,

Koen Frolichs: no. Yeah. Well, you know, yeah. Initially you have to date, like Yeah, yeah.

Just

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: be the first shot.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'll save the classroom by, oops. Dead.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I'll, I'll absorb a bullet.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly.

Koen Frolichs: No, but I think that's the appeal of Jack Reacher, right? Everyone kind of wants to be the hero who gets the girl, and then also is like, okay with leaving her again and just moving on, kind of, right.

I mean, that, that already is admirable, right? That he just like, yeah, it didn't work out, so we moved on. It's like, you really, Mr. Richard.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But that's his attitude to everything, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. That's true. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean that's, that's one thing that I find kind of interesting is about him just moving on that kinda stuff.

It's, it's, he never has any, in any of the books I've read, any plans or that kinda stuff, right? He, this is what I find kind of interesting. He has these like plans where he says, I'm gonna do take a road trip, or I'm gonna find out this thing. Yeah. But there's no like ultimate [00:29:00] goal or anything. There's, there's nothing there, basically.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So like in that sense, almost. Just leaving being fine with it. Not caring is fits in this very well because like there's no, there's no ultimate thing anyway. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah, yeah. He just leaves sure he needs to roam.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But not only that, it's just, it's, I dunno, it's just, I guess, yeah. Maybe one reason that he doesn't overthink is that he, he has nothing in that sense to live for, right.

There's no, what if I get hungry here? Like, well, he doesn't want to do anything really anyway. He just kind of,

Koen Frolichs: yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Does stuff and gets involved in tricky situations.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's right. I guess it almost comes with the, you know, when, when we. Um, um, worry or wonder about the future. Right. That's kind of our Yeah, exactly.

Our, you know, we are already planning. Right? Okay. Where will I be in two years or whatever. He doesn't have that at all. Right. Yeah. So I guess there's a difference.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Not from anything I've read. He has very [00:30:00] specific actionable goals.

Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Whether it be in this case, well I don't even, I can't remember exactly.

He just, I mean he went to that town because of that musician, I think.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think that was the reason.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, but I dunno, but I think he just, I dunno whether he actually specifically went there or he just went by and realized like, oh, I'm close to that place. I'll go there.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I'll get off.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I think that was, yeah.

So he, but there was no like ultimate as far as I can tell. I mean, I don't know. This is kinda interesting 'cause this is also the first, I'm assuming the books are largely chronological or somewhat, so this is probably one of the first books where he is really outta the military and assuming there he did have maybe a bit more of a.

Of a normal goal, like whatever.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Something. Whereas,

Koen Frolichs: I mean, military is very written rhythm driven even, right? I mean, you get up at six 30, whatever you make your bed, do your things.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Go back to bed.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But, so this is in a way, almost when he almost should be the, the most, not goal driven, but [00:31:00] having the most plans.

Whereas, you know Sure. In later books, it's been 15 years and he is only been doing this stuff. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, but no, I agree. Of course, this is a, this is a massive fantasy, you know? What if you could just deal with every situation.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, yeah, exactly.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But that's, it's, it's not even about like violence or, or like being the hero.

It's just like you are, you are, he's, he's not worried because he's, I think also has the confidence that he can deal with whatever happens.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's why we like these stories, right? We like this. Person who can take control over his life, you know, takes away a bit of the, the worry about life, right?

The, the, this real randomness to it, right? That we are all subject to.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, what you mean by that? By real rent Or

Koen Frolichs: let's say you can never, like when you have like a flat tire or whatever, right? You can never, that always happens at an inconvenient, you know, far away from any gas station or any town. Like Richa would just be like, [00:32:00] oh, well, you know, I'll

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: wait.

Oh

Koen Frolichs: yeah, I'll go, I'll into that place. Because like the, the, the inflate, like the inflatable tire, the replacement tire will be gone of course. You know, and he would just be like, okay, whatever. You know, I'll, I'll walk or I'll anyway. Yeah. Something like that. And that's something that, you know, even that mundane stuff, that's something that.

You know, if I happen to be in that situation, I'd be like, oh fuck. You know, what do I do? Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I mean, I con, you know, I contrast this with me having a major breakdown of my, uh, a, sorry, a minor, uh, psychological breakdown when I'm programming every time. Yeah. You know, it's just so stupid. Like, you know, and then I think having these kind of examples, even if they're fictional of just deal with the situation rather than whining and moaning and bitching is I think a healthy contrast.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I guess in that way it's like also it could be a healthy role model, you know, within, within air quote, not for the killing people, but for the, you know. Yeah. [00:33:00] I guess dealing, we've been talking about the same thing now. Yeah, yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, exactly.

Koen Frolichs: I have, I have, um, but, but maybe not. Now I have another set of facts, like my last set of facts in case you, okay.

You're curious.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,

Koen Frolichs: I can also tell you said

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: later or now

Koen Frolichs: we can do it now. Whatever you want.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Hit me with some facts. Good.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. Well, I'll, I'll start with a question, you know. Okay. Listen, listen to this, Ben.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's not a fact. Good.

Koen Frolichs: Listen to this, Ben. And then you'll see how, what a professional I have become in five episodes.

Podcasting.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. Um, Ben?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes. Good.

Koen Frolichs: Do, do you know what a puncheon is?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: A punch? Um,

no. He

Koen Frolichs: okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I feel like I should know. I feel like I've heard this.

Koen Frolichs: Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it, it's in the book, right?

Koen Frolichs: No, it's not. It's not in the book.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh,

Koen Frolichs: it's not in the book.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I feel like I should, it is one of those words. I feel like I should know what it is, but I don't.

Koen Frolichs: Well, okay. Listen to this man. Keep listening.

After the ads we'll [00:34:00] reveal it and, and now you run ads.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I don't have Cool. No one wants to sponsor this.

Koen Frolichs: I need money. Okay. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry. I mean, if you want, you can give me money. Do you have any cause you want to promote, uh, you can run an ad now for 20 seconds for No, I won't. Uh, no. Okay. Okay. I mean, you could have, could, you could have, uh, advertised UNICEF or whatever for only one Euro, but No, you chose not to,

Koen Frolichs: I'm sorry.

World. Um, okay. So I was very curious. Um. I was very curious about the stack of $1 bills they had in the warehouse.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes.

Koen Frolichs: Right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh,

Koen Frolichs: you meant

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it was a pile, right?

Koen Frolichs: It was a pile. It was all, you said it was a mountain of $1 bills? Yeah, it was $40 million in $1 bills. And I was curious, will $40,000,001 bills or dollar bills, I guess will they form a mountain?

Right? That's my question. So I started to duck, duck, go. So the only thing you can find is the size of a $1 million in a hundred dollars bills, but [00:35:00] I can multiply by a hundred. That's, I was about say, um, so the, the size of a dollar bill is 15.6 by 6.6 centimeters, and then the, the thickness of a hundred bills is about 1.1 centimeters.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's not that much. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: no,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but this is assuming they're clean, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yes. Yes. That's a very important, so this is like the clean thing is you, you would get from a bank, right? You see when bank robbers rubber a bank, you know, that's like the crisp clean stacks that's $10,000. So, um, you would only need a hundred of those to get a million dollars in $100 bills.

Oh, that's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: a suitcase, basically, right?

Koen Frolichs: Which is a suitcase. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Um, that's all like the volume of about 11.3 liters. That's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: okay.

Koen Frolichs: A volume, right? Just uh, so we can like kind of

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, that's really not that much. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah. Well, if we do it times a hundred,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's a small bucket is 30 liters, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. [00:36:00] I mean, of course the bills will not fit in there, you know, because they have their shape, but yeah, it's not that much. Yeah. Yeah. It's a small suitcase. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: If we multiply by a hundred, of course it's 1,130 liters, which gets, you know, it get, you know, you multiply times a hundred, um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,

Koen Frolichs: right.

Um, 1,130 liters, and then a bathtub is about 75 to 170 liters. So, you know, you need like, let's say, you know, 10, 15 bathtubs to fill this. That's quite a lot actually. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, sorry, how much are we talking about now? We're talking about a hundred million dollars in a hundred dollars bills, or

Koen Frolichs: $1 million in $1 bills is a volume of 1100 liters.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So 10 to 15 bathtubs you said?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, because a bathtub is only 75 liters. I thought it was more. Yeah, actually I think there's, oh, no, no. Okay. Okay, so we keep going. So one meter cubed, that's a thousand liters. Yeah. So let's say that's about our crisp clean dollar bills, right? It's a little bit more than a meter cubed [00:37:00] because 1100 liters.

So $40 million in crisp clean dollar bills is 45,200 cubic. Oh no shit. I messed this up. Did I mess this up? I did this. Like, let's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: try not, let's try to not embarrass ourselves there completely. Uh, wait, so let's, uh, but also not spend too much time on this, um, uh, Kun. How many bathtubs? That's the question.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. I don't have bathtubs. I can tell you how many punch on a punch is a wine barrels. A wine barrel.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Good. My frame of reference is always a bathtub when it comes to volume.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. I don't have, I don't have bathtubs. I have oil barrels. How many oil barrels do you think is about,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno how much oil barrels.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Me neither. Good. You put it in a calculator that's calculated. Nine.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay.

Koen Frolichs: 283.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. How big is a barrel though, without knowing that

Koen Frolichs: 45,000 liters divided by 283, which is like, [00:38:00] uh, 2200 liters. 200

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: liters. You know, it's funny, like we're talking and I'm not a tour doing any maths in my head as we're talking.

Like, I'm, I'm literally just listening, going, okay. Okay. And I'm literally not even remembering half the numbers, so I just, I guess I just have to trust you on this.

Koen Frolichs: Trust me. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,

Koen Frolichs: um, so it was like, it's, yeah, I, I mean, I did this like right before we started, so it was very quick. So I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You're drunk? Yeah.

Okay. So,

Koen Frolichs: well, you know, I have to get in the mood. Um, so it's 90 wine barrel. It's weird that a wine barrel is bigger than a oil barrel. It's a big wine barrel. Yeah. Okay. My micro,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: anyway, sorry. Uh, just, uh, but then for, uh, to maybe make this a bit easier. So the, uh,

Koen Frolichs: can

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it form amount, A suitcase is basically a million dollars in a hundred dollars bills, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yes, yes. Yes.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. So we need So

Koen Frolichs: a hundred suit suitcases. Yeah. Is is $1 million in,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so we need 4,000, [00:39:00] right? Because it's 40 million, not 1 million. So total four. Yes,

Koen Frolichs: exactly.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So four th Yeah. I mean, that's,

Koen Frolichs: yeah. I mean, I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: mean, to be fair, I think I imagined it bigger, but then again, they're not like clean and they're probably not lying smoothly on

Koen Frolichs: top top.

That's the whole thing, right? They're in between not, yeah. So let's say, yeah, maybe they take up like twice the space, you know, then it's, you know, it gets I think, um, a standard 20 foot container as you know, um, as we all know. Yeah, just use standard 20 foot container is almost 34 square meters. Um, um, cubic meters.

Excuse me. So it's like, it's like, let's say one and a half standard containers of crisp bills. Yeah. I'm probably messing up the mathematics really, really hard here. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: nah, they're bigger than that. Right? Wait, a contain, I mean, a container like 35 square meter, what do you say? Cube meters? Yeah, I mean that's like basically, uh, 10 by three by one meter, right?

Is that right? That seems, that seems too small.

Koen Frolichs: Well, no, because it's six, it's 20 foot, which [00:40:00] is six meters, right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Is it only six meters long?

Koen Frolichs: Well, 20 foot is six meters. Right. It's a standard 20 foot container. 20 isn't 20.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, it's fine. I just assumed it was

Koen Frolichs: longer than we're, we're messing this up. We sh I shouldn't have gone here.

Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and also I think, uh, we are still reaching the conclusion that Yeah. Makes sense.

Koen Frolichs: It's, I would say it's, it's a big pile. It's a big pile. It's not a mountain. It's a big pile. I mean, of course it's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: not a mountain corn that in a warehouse.

Koen Frolichs: Mr. Child wrote

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that. It's a metaphor.

Koen Frolichs: I don't deal with metaphors.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Did you look up like the definition of a mountain like that? These 500 meters high? Yeah. A thousand meters high or something. I a fucking liar. It has a roof curtain. There's a roof above it. Like it's Of course it's on a mountain.

Koen Frolichs: Well, okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But no, I appreciate the efforts you put into this.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Oh, okay.

Last thing, last of my, um, thingies of my, because I, this is not working out.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Wait, this is one of the facts you're hitting me with, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I'm hitting you with not another fact because [00:41:00] I was wondering, can you even get 40 million. $1 bills. Right. How many are in circulation on, on a given time? Right. You know?

Right. So like, okay, the average lifespan of a $1 bill is 5.8 years, which is quite little. There's 11.7 billion $1 bills in circulation.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. So

Koen Frolichs: that's, so 40 million is actually, you know, a, a, a spec, like a, how do you call it?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, yeah, not that much. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: not that much. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: So it's

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: possible. So, so basically what we're saying is Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Could be,

Koen Frolichs: could be. Good. Good job, Mr. Child. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: cool. And

Koen Frolichs: you did this before Google

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: precise calculation. Yeah, no, this was, wait, when? Okay. I think Google, Google was founded in 1995. Right. I mean, it was published in 1997, but I think it was, yeah, but I mean there were other search engines. They just didn't work.

Koen Frolichs: I mean, he could have measured like a stack of dollar bills. Of course.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Or he could have and and obviously everyone knows how big a selling container is, [00:42:00] so

Koen Frolichs: that's all If once you know that you know your bathtub, you know your punch in. Oh, I also had, um, shot glasses. Um, a million. So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: one

Koen Frolichs: shot

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: is a dollar.

Koen Frolichs: No. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Roughly

Koen Frolichs: $40 is a shot glass of volume.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Wait, couldn't have you ever seen a shot glass? You can't get $40 into that, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I guess my calculations, I dunno. It said shots. I dunno if that shot glasses. It might be something else. It might be something else You call a shot.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it shot, I mean, when I think of a shot, like I, if I imagine like, you know, a a, um, forwarding up a dollar bill, I can't imagine getting 40 into that.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, that's right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, uh, we should also maybe clarify. KO and I are psychologists. We don't have a degree that requires, we don't, we're not doing a job that really requires any actual calculation.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. No KA here. Um, definitely not. [00:43:00] Yeah. So if anyone here can do very good mental calculations, realize I was, um, wrong.

Send Ben hate mail.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, go ahead.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I love it. Especially if it's like, fuck Huna. Like, yeah, fuck. Exactly.

Koen Frolichs: No, no, no, no. You can't send me hate mail. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: no, no. They send me the hate mail about you. That's what I mean. Like they'll,

Koen Frolichs: uh, maybe we can get a sponsor for, um, a mats education like Khan Academy or something.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Or brilliant. They sponsor a lot of podcasts.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Hey, hello.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Could you realize they only here this, once it's published?

Koen Frolichs: They could be. No. This could be one of those world word problems you have in math where you're like, sir, who buys 40 watermelons? Right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yes.

Koen Frolichs: And then you like recliners.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Like imagine.

Yeah. That would be a great math problem. Like imagine you have 200 bathtubs and you're trying to fill them with dollar [00:44:00] bills.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Crisp, crisp dollar bills. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, shall we move on? Would

Koen Frolichs: it? Yeah. Sorry. I'm very sorry. That was an incredible long tangent. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'll, I'll, I'll, um,

Koen Frolichs: we'll cut

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it, not edit anything.

This, this has to be, we're documenting something here. I'm not sure what, um,

Koen Frolichs: yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But it's, it's, it's important for history that people remember this moment.

Koen Frolichs: You're welcome. History.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I have basically one point about the book, then one question more general about what you made of this discussion and Okay.

You know, reading this book in this other way, which is maybe like the last thing we can talk about.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so the question is, do you want to, when do you want to reveal the big reveal?

Koen Frolichs: I think I'm ready to do it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Are you ready? Some point soon. Okay. So cool. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Did your father

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: In the late nineties or whatever, one day

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Randomly bang his fist on the table and say, Kun, you know what the [00:45:00] problem is with the dollar?

Koen Frolichs: Yes. Damn card.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Did he or did he not?

Koen Frolichs: Okay. So I talked to my dad. I was like, dad, um, did you ever read to Jack Rich? Do

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you know what the problem is? Withal?

Koen Frolichs: What's so fucking proud of Dad? Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you never answered.

You just asked. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. He, um, he, he did confide in me that, um, he did indeed read almost all the Jack richer books or like, he's read a lot of them.

Yeah.

Um, he didn't remember telling me specifically that, um, there's an issue with which American, um, dollar, but I think the arts of me, like Ally Sherlock Holmes, like reducing this whole book, um, plot.

Me remembering some vague facts that I learned in the early two thousands. Um, I think it's kind of, it points towards my dad telling me, supporting this book for me about 20 years ago. So, um, yeah, I'll go with that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's the answer I wanted to hear.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It would it be so disappointing [00:46:00] if Dad said, who's Jack Reacher?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah. No, he, he read, he read a lot of them apparently. So, um, so yeah, it, it worked, it worked for him. He impressed his, um, his 9-year-old son one day with a random fact. Yeah, no, I dunno. But, um, yeah, so he, he said that's one of the, the, the few series he actually like, you know, followed kind Yeah. Um, for at least for a couple years.

So, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So now you're finally making him proud.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, exactly.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or trying

Koen Frolichs: at least. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Do you, do you think he's gonna listen to this? He's, he's now played a major part in the last, in this and the last episode. I feel like he's almost the third, third, uh, cohost.

Koen Frolichs: He is almost right. I should have had a, a voice recording of him.

No. Um, I, I, um, I don't know, I don't think my dad, you know, who spent like, you know, the first 20 years of his life with me at the kitchen table, um, during dinner, the

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: first 20 years of his life.

Koen Frolichs: Of my life.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, okay.

Koen Frolichs: Um, at the kitchen. Like, he doesn't want to hear me talk. I talk enough [00:47:00] like he's, he's heard enough.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh yeah. That's fair enough.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. He doesn't need a podcast. So, yeah, no, I don't, I don't think he would.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Good. I know what you sound like. I know what you're gonna say anyway.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

So I know maybe he will, maybe he will. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it's just a slightly disappointing that he doesn't remember this one bonding moment from your childhood,

Koen Frolichs: this steep

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: people, but clearly left an impression on you and he just didn't even hang.

Koen Frolichs: Well, that's, that's the amazing thing, right? If I wouldn't have read this book, I probably wouldn't have even kind of remembered this moment, right? Like something in me, like there was like this one neuron that was like kind of like ready to fire it at moment when we stopped just sitting

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: there going, come on, come on.

Koen Frolichs: Gimme us currency, gimme us. And then like it happened. So that's kind of cool. So, so I guess it's, uh, this, that's what is this podcast has given me

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: a childhood memory back.

Koen Frolichs: A childhood memory back. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm sorry.

Koen Frolichs: No. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I know you're trying to forget, but yeah.

Koen Frolichs: No, no, no. It's, uh, it's fun. I mean, I, I, I guess to, to move [00:48:00] on with what I got from this, I, I enjoyed it.

Um, it's fun.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Sorry, just one last, one last point. Yeah. Just because this is, this is something I thought we'd mentioned much earlier, but we never did, and then we can do a more general thing.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, so this is, I'm just gonna read you like two paragraphs. They're fairly short. And I want, I wanna want you to, to write whether this reminds you of someone, not someone we know, but someone you, you know of.

Koen Frolichs: Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, and the scene, is that right towards the end? Yeah. So I think Roscoe told. Reacher about what happened in the three days that she was mm-hmm. You know, a captive basically.

Koen Frolichs: Got it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Rosco had been a slave the best part of three days in fear for her life in danger, exhausted and humiliated for three long days.

And it was my fault. I told her that the more I told her, the more she said, she didn't blame me. It wasn't your fault. She was saying, I'm sorry, I was saying don't be. She was telling me we listened to each other. We accepted what was being said, but I still thought it was my fault. Wasn't a [00:49:00] hundred percent sure she didn't think so too, despite what she was saying.

We didn't fall out about it, but it was the first faint sign of a problem between us. Actually, I'm gonna cut out the second paragraph. The first paragraph is,

Koen Frolichs: okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway. Does that part of that thing remind you of any, not major cultural figure, but a cultural figure that we are both aware of?

Koen Frolichs: It was my fault, and then she says she wasn't.

Hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: This isn't necessarily the perfect example for the point I'm trying to make, but it's something Okay. Anyway,

Koen Frolichs: so I think I'm missing the point. I think I'm missing

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it. Yeah. So basically he's blaming himself. He's basically saying, this is what happened to her, is my problem. And it's, it's my fault.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I'm taking responsibility for it.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So in a way you could say he's owning the problem and what happened. Right.

Koen Frolichs: Ah, you think you're thinking, uh, what's his name? Jocko.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly.

Koen Frolichs: You're thinking Jocko. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, if anyone would be like the stereotype Jack richer. Right. It would be [00:50:00] like this Jocko kind of like who deals with stuff.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Some, so we're talking about Jocko Willink, who is a, uh, retired A, B, C or whatever. And his whole thing is extreme ownership, taking responsibility for everything that happened.

Koen Frolichs: True.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And, um, anyway, so this was just like one small part of it, but in general, I, I feel like I've read, you know, I've read a few books of these and I find it really hard not to imagine someone who looks exactly like Jock.

Koen Frolichs: Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, jock is much, is smaller. He's also like a meter 80 or something, I think. Um, but apart from that, he just perfectly, I mean, not perfectly right. He has a family, that kinda stuff. So he, he doesn't like ruin Yeah. That kinda stuff. But if you take that aside, like the whole attitude

Koen Frolichs: That's true.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so much what he basically tells people should do.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or what he tries to do and how, yeah.

Koen Frolichs: There's this YouTube clip, um, for people if they're interested. I think it's called good. Do you know what I'm talking [00:51:00] about? Good. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Know

Koen Frolichs: what you're talking about. So I think if you do Jocko Willink good.

You'll find it. Oh,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well, I'll put it in the description.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, put it in the description and then we won't spoil it. But it's like, I guess it's like Jack Reach. It's good. Yeah, it's good. Do you know if Jock Jocko Willink, um, if you have like a Yeah, I have no idea. I've a book recommendation list or something like that, or if you read

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it.

Oh, sorry. I mean I'm sure he has book Recomme some sort of book recommendation list, but I dunno where these, wait, let's see. Because I mean, the funny thing is of course, also his name is so similar, right? Jocko and Jack. Er

Koen Frolichs: Jocko Jack. Yeah, you're right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I've just, yeah, he just perfectly, I think resembles the guy.

Koen Frolichs: Makes you wonder if he like read the books and that kind of like, you know, got him.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So that's because the funny thing is also that I think Jocko Willink not exactly grew up but joined the military around the time that this book came out, I think a bit earlier, something like that. Ah, could be. I thought there might be two tweets by Jocko that alluded to this, but they don't, there's Yeah.

Someone, no one else seems to have made this [00:52:00] anyway. I'm not looking at, yeah. I'm not gonna do lots of research. Maybe

Koen Frolichs: it's fans don't read books.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I don't know. Uh, but I, I find it really hard to having, you know, listen to some of Jocko's podcast and the stuff he says just, yeah. Fits. I think that the general vibe fits perfectly well.

Also him as being like a retired Navy Seal. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That kind of thing. Being a retired whatever. Was he military, police, whatever that is.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, yeah. And okay. That was, that was basically my last point, but then I realized, shall we, I think I'll do some readings from the other book I read.

Koen Frolichs: Oh yeah, sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And there wasn't actually that much in the, I think it is an interesting book, and if people really like the Jack Reacher series, it's probably a fun thing to read

Koen Frolichs: this. Yeah, yeah. This book, um, about,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so this book is called Reacher, said Nothing by. Andy Martin, where I, I mentioned this I think in episode two and three or whatever.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Um, where Andy Martin basically stays, not all the [00:53:00] time, but frequently is in the same room as Lee Child is writing a, the 15th or 20th reach a book or whatever. Yeah. And he's basically just watching him write the book. And so it's obviously about a different book. It's about like the 20th reacher book or something.

Mm-hmm. But there's also a lot of background on Lee Child and especially how he got started. So there's quite a bit actually about the first book.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um. Actually, here's a, this has nothing to do with the richer books per se, but I think it's interesting, a fun way of looking, uh, uh, an interesting attitude that, uh, Lee Child has.

So this is from the book, richer Said Nothing back in England, he being Lee Child was always picking up tickets for parking illegally or speeding and he would never pay the fine, not once. Quote, not from Lee Child. I approach it from a civil liberties perspective. If you ever let the mere accusation of crime become synonymous with a conviction, you have East Germany and total Italian totalitarian state, everybody is all is automatically guilty.

Now Andy Martin asks, yeah, but you were actually guilty, right? [00:54:00] The Lee child response. Of course, he snorted. Probably everyone really is guilty of something, let's face it. But that's not the point. You have to test and challenge the prosecutors. Citizens should put them through their paces. It's a fundamental prince of jurisprudence, uh, and of the child reaching.

So now it's just the book again. So whenever he picked up a ticket, he would just ignore it, rip it up, and bin it. Then the follow-up letter started arriving, and he would ignore them too, rip them up into tiny little pieces in the spirit of hi jurisprudence. Once in a while he would actually get dragged into court, and the formal charge was not the parking infraction, but not responding to an official letter.

James Grant, which is Lee Charles's actual name.

Koen Frolichs: Hmm?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: How do you plead not guilty? Your Honor. His basic strategy can be summed up in two words. What letter? Now this is Lee Charles speaking again. I would make them walk through it in a forensically responsible way. You know who wrote this letter? Do you have any proof it was actually delivered?

No, your Honor. I beg to have this case dismissed for want of evidence. [00:55:00] End of the child speaking. He pulled it off six or seven times in Manchester. It was always thrown out of. Out for lack of hard evidence. Lee went out into the kitchen, poured two cups of coffee, and brought them back in Lee, hard speaking again.

After that, I decided to up the ante little. I started appealing for expenses, you know, a day off work, 300 pounds on account of having my time wasted by a frivolous vexatious prosecution. And I won two, which really wound up this woman who was running the whole ticketing, ticketing business. Uh, and of the speaking.

Her name was Miss Brace Gidel. The next time Mr. James Grant was up before the bench, she brought her entire office staff along with her reinforcements to demonstrate the existence of the letter and make the child stick. Lee had to cross examine the typist who had typed the original letter accusing him of speeding and who had been coached.

What to say. Lee, you can recall writing this letter. She Yes. On May 5th, Lee, even [00:56:00] though this was over a year ago, she, I recall it clearly, Lee, so you'll remember what day of the week it was. She, how do you expect me to remember that? It was over a year ago. Oops. Case dismissed. Sound of gavel gave, I dunno, should I say that?

Gavel, gavel being brought down.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, Lee, child speaking again. It's the duty of the citizen to stand up to the state, sadly, rather heroically.

Koen Frolichs: Damn. That's a quote. I love that one.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You know what the most annoying thing is?

Koen Frolichs: Huh?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I paid 90 euros recently for, oh, no, it's different though. So I, I reached out to pay 90 Euros because I, uh, allegedly, uh, drove a red light with my bike.

Oh. But then I guess there's maybe the difference because the police people actually had to stop me.

Koen Frolichs: They saw you doing it again

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and there were two of them. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas, whereas the speeding thing is maybe an automated thing.

Koen Frolichs: It's an automated thing. Yeah. I think there's a difference there.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Although, there's an interesting thing though, because when I got the letter that I had, I think technically the, the offense is that three seconds [00:57:00] after the light went red, I crossed on my bike.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh, the, the crossing, uh, so I got this letter and there was an error in it.

Koen Frolichs: Oh.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And because they misspelled one, it was just like a, they, they, they, uh, twisted two letters basically. Yeah. So technically I had a letter there for a crossing that didn't exist. They said, you know, you crossed this road and that road or this crossing you, you know, but it didn't exist.

That thing doesn't exist in handbook. At the time, uh, this is getting a longer divergent than I went to. Uh, at the time I was, that was when I was collecting data in prison. Uh, so I was in prison and I thought, well, maybe I'll ask some of the prisons guards. There is something more maybe about the like police legal system or whatever than I do.

Yeah. Because I wondered like, technically I can't have gone over a red light there. They can't see me there. It doesn't exist.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then he said, yeah, but like, what kind of error is it? Is it just a Ty or is it like they, you know, completely wrong road or whatever. It's like, no, it's just, you know, they [00:58:00] just swapped out two letters or whatever and he's like, yeah, if you appeal that though, you might, like, if you are unlucky, they'll drag you into like, you know, dragging it out or whatever.

But when I read that, I thought,

Koen Frolichs: fuck, I could have done. So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Should have tried it.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, true.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, different country, of course. Yeah. And also, I mean, for me also, this is, I mean, of course he tongue and cheek. At least I think mentions this as a kind of standing up to the state. Whereas I see this more as a matter of

Koen Frolichs: money.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I don't wanna waste my time here.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: sure. And I did, you know, again, like with that one, I couldn't complain because not only did I cross a red light, I actually, the police then drove behind me and I crossed another red light as they were stopping me. So technically they could have given me two tickets.

So I felt like Yeah, fair enough. But

Koen Frolichs: yeah, that's sad. But I mean, I think it kind of shows there might be a bit of, of richer in Lee Childs who goes and fights the bad guys if we agree [00:59:00] that the bad the state is a bad guy or the big guy, I guess.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So that's a bit more about lead child.

Koen Frolichs: So, so he was like, as a kid, he beat up other kids and as an adult he,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Speeded through, I dunno, wherever he lived, Manchester, um, not paying any fines.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly

Koen Frolichs: What? Asshole, asshole.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Oh, actually, here's something I completely forgot, uh, which I wanted to mention in the very first one, literally the day we recorded the first, uh, discussion. Yeah, yeah. The first whatever, seven chapters, whatever it was.

Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: On The Guardian, there was an article with a headline. I could never date someone who liked Jack Reacher.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, I saw that as well. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Did you see that too? Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And I mean, to be fair, I can't remember, I think this was from a woman in her fifties or sixties who really liked romance novels or something.

Um, yeah. So I feel like, yeah, we probably didn't have that much in common anyway. Um, but [01:00:00] uh, but I found that funny that literally the day we recorded the first one, there was this thing.

Koen Frolichs: There was this thing. Yeah, I saw that as well. Yeah. There was this thing that if you have, um, res in your Tinder profile or in your dating profile, you're like 20% more likely to get.

Dates or something like that. I think it was something like that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think the article was about a dating website, specifically about literary interest or something, which seemed a bit Oh,

Koen Frolichs: okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But you don't wanna date someone who's that? Into books?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I think it was literally like a dating website that set itself up by like matching people according to the books they liked or something like that.

Um,

Koen Frolichs: okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway, I can, if I find it, I'll put it in the description. So this is, I think, an interesting point about maybe she, yeah, if I'd read this in the first one, this maybe would've been almost more interesting. But there's an interesting thing about Richard being very popular and also not, and here's, so here's a somewhat lengthy quote or general discussion about this.

So this is again, from the book, Richard said nothing. There was a paradox about the region [01:01:00] novels. They were immensely popular, published in the millions around the world with a fan Ross that included Antonio Frazier and Malcolm Gladwell, Kate Atkinson Atkinson, and Haruki Murakami. They were also immensely unpopular among certain readers of Julian Barnes and Jonathan Fran, and were frowned upon by Howard Pinter and elicited frosty nose wrinkling from such as Edward Docs, whoever that is.

Now, I had the impression, maybe a faint thought was sitting in, for example, a Cambridge Post grad trying to set up some interdisciplinary seminar series on working in on work in progress. Had wandered aloud if Lee and I could be interested in participating. Quite, uh, this is a quote, uh, reach and remains a little outside the pale.

Lee said continuing. There are barriers. You can see it from their point of view. They need an exclusion principle. I'm too low falutin for them. End of quote, by early. It was an axis that stretched as Lee put it from the radio times to the Sunday times. Colin Dexter and Morse had broken through thanks to Oxford and the [01:02:00] opera.

Then when Dexter stopped writing, it was Ian Ranking and Rebus. They were the anointed ones, the Axi, the Axis had permission to read them. Richard remained a guilty pledge of something you only indulged in behind closed doors. When Richard came up on some literary panel show on Radio four, one of the quote, artsy woman panelists quote introduced her comments by saying quote, I would never have thought of picking up this book, if not for the show end.

It was sheer naked prejudice, but her surprise, she liked it.

Koen Frolichs: Oh,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and there's another story in here about where Andy Martin is in the subway or something. In London or New York or wherever.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And someone has a, I think it's Don's Underworld or something, the cover. Andy Martin saw him one day and thought, okay, he's reading that book.

The next day he saw him, but he was sitting next to him and he realized that the cover was, you know, the serious books. Just that. Yeah. But inside was a original.

Koen Frolichs: Wow. Oh wow. Is it that much of a guilty pleasure? [01:03:00]

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I guess it's like the, the kind of not cheap, like cheap thriller books you get at a train station or whatever, right.

Like it's, it's that kind of book, right?

Koen Frolichs: Is it like pulp Fiction, but not,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: not really. I, it's a good example of, I think it's a very good example of pulp fiction.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: mean, I've read like some books like the, you know, the kind of pop fiction that's written quickly and often they're very bad. But I think this is, I mean, I think, you know, there's, there's not, you know, the funny thing is that we've been talking about this book for five hours now, but

Koen Frolichs: Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: there's, we've never really talked about a theme, really.

Right. We've never really talked about deeper meaning other than maybe Jack Richer being in the zone.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's always been plot, right? It's like, what happens next? What happens to this person? All that kinda stuff. You know, when we discussed Crime and Punishment, it was much, you know, there's this whole discussion about is it sometimes should you be allowed to kill someone or not

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: In which circumstances, whatever. Right? Like, you have all these things, whereas here it's just, you know, the, the, the, the morality of, of Read your books is, as [01:04:00] far as I can tell, always very clear.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: There's good and bad people.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And now it's just a kind of purely plot driven entertainment of like, what's gonna happen next.

Koen Frolichs: Got it. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, Lee Child has a very different opinion on this. The, and this, I think the same interview that I mentioned earlier, he's also like, yeah, these literary fiction people, they are basically just the leeches of the literary industry. Like we are the guys who finance them.

Without us, they couldn't exist. Like they literally are only, like, most of the people lose money on those, like publishers lose money on those books. Yeah. And it's only because of people like Lee Child or whatever that the publisher keeps, make enough money to take those authors on.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You know, I think, like there's another, someone quotes towards the NTOA, it says something like, where it was almost like criticized for being like a, uh, a, a very popular bestseller is like, what's the criticism?

Like if you wanna be an unpopular, worst seller.

Koen Frolichs: [01:05:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess, yeah. I mean

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's, yeah, but that's always the case, right? Yeah. Like you always have this, this,

Koen Frolichs: when something becomes popular. There will be haters. Right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's one thing, but I mean, also just this tension between entertainment and substance, if that's what you wanna call it.

Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Same with films or with music or whatever, right?

Koen Frolichs: Uh, yeah, you're right. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You know, listen to the radio. It's not, it's not good music usually, but then again, it's often nice to listen to in the background, to, you know,

Koen Frolichs: yeah. It's got like, yeah. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But a lot of it is very dumb.

There's,

Koen Frolichs: well, it's, it's very standard. Like they have a formula almost. Right. I mean, I'm not saying it's easy to make a hit. It's probably still really, you know,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Difficult, but like, you know, there is a formula. It's like, you know, it's got like a, a recognizable chorus with like a nice melody, whatever you can sing along to, you know, that kind of stuff, right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It's very simple. Yeah. It has to be. Yeah. You have to be able to sing along with, so it can't be, yeah, the record range can't be too large. In most cases,

Koen Frolichs: I guess there's exceptions, but Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, of course. Like Mariah Carey, I guess, or someone like that makes a career out of [01:06:00] having that large vocal range.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah. Um,

Koen Frolichs: so Mariah Carey is like, Jack richer. That's what we, we sat now, right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. They're basically the same person, I think.

Koen Frolichs: Oh, okay. Interesting.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um. There's some rea Yeah, I think maybe people should just, uh, read the book so I don't have to read all the long quotes.

Koen Frolichs: But you would, I mean, you would recommend people read the book if they like Jack richer or

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: if they like Yeah, if you like.

I think if you don't, then it's a bit pointless. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's also about writing in the writing industry a bit.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's, I mean, it's also, it's, it's, it's in a way similar to a book in that it's fairly easy to read. Entertaining.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. Quick.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's, it's not, and it is, there again, there's not huge substance to it, but for me it was interesting to read.

Definitely.

Koen Frolichs: Okay. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Here's a So not unlike us sometimes, uh, Lee out has some very weird stuff he knows too much about. Uh, and here is Conde surprised. Um, he literally [01:07:00] told me for like five minutes, uh, whether you can shoot someone's leg off with a gun,

Koen Frolichs: that's it. Eagle, not just any gun.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, go on. But here's, uh, Lee out commenting on suicides.

Koen Frolichs: Oh,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, so here's a quote, Lee Chart. Remember what happened to Sylvia Plath? Andy Martin head in the oven, Lee out. You can't do it now. Andy Martin gas is not toxic. Leach out natural gas. You can sit around sniffing gas all day long, won't do you a whole lot of harm point or sticking your head in the oven.

Andy Martin, unless you want to cook it. Of course. Uh, Lee Child. Same with cars. The old host pipe attached to the exhaust routine. End of Lee Child speaking. I was shocked. Andy Martin, you mean that doesn't work anymore? It always worked in the movies. Lee Child catalytic converters said Lee, in a tone of regret, they filtered out all the carbon monoxide.

And this was in the book also. Like [01:08:00] he just kind of randomly mentions this. It was kind of just, he just had the, he has that knowledge. Yeah. And this is one example of a few other things where you, he just knows this kind

Koen Frolichs: of stuff. He just knows this kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean that does sound like. I, I, yeah, I guess it won't kill you, but it's still probably not healthy to breed in, um, exhaust fumes.

Right.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it's probably not healthy, but the whole point is that it won't, it

Koen Frolichs: won't kill you directly. Yeah. Like the monotonies

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and I think, and I think, uh, they continue saying that this is almost a pretty nice way of killing yourself.

Koen Frolichs: Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or used to be because you kind of just fall asleep. You just, yeah.

Slowly get out of consciousness. It's not like, you know, drowning or something where your lungs like just soak in whatever they can and then it's just horrible. Yeah. I think apparently that's, apparently that used to be the kind of thing where you just fell asleep and never woke up again. Um,

Koen Frolichs: okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah.

Um, maybe

Koen Frolichs: we shouldn't have done, like, sorry, maybe we shouldn't have done a suicide thing after five hours of us talking. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you think it's [01:09:00] gonna,

Koen Frolichs: it's gonna,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but we, we basically showed that you can't do it anymore. It's impossible. So you might as well not try.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. Don't, don't do it people,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. This was an interesting thing I thought about writing about how Lee Charge writes the books.

He has this technique, a wave of getting started. Ask a question and then don't answer it.

Koen Frolichs: That's it. That's the quote.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, basically like you, you get him into a situation, but he, well, you know, like he wants to, for example, talk to this person. Right.

Koen Frolichs: Got okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And then he can't,

Koen Frolichs: things happen in,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah.

So I guess this whole thing, right? You, you give like a character some sort of motivation.

Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. And

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: then they just can't fulfill it until the end basically.

Koen Frolichs: Got it. Yeah. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, yeah. Also, I dunno why this surprised me so much, but apparently Lee Hard smokes a lot of weed and yeah, here this was a quite, where he says, uh, or like Andy Martin writes, he took out his pipe, filled it with ated marijuana from a pouch and puff thoughtfully.[01:10:00]

This is just a maintenance dose, he said a top of

Koen Frolichs: Wow. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: In general, he is not a healthy living guy. There's, uh, seeing over fun later how much coffee he drinks in a day. It's ridiculous,

Koen Frolichs: really? And, and he smokes it from a pipe. But

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, that's the next thing. I've never heard of anyone smoking weed from a pipe.

Koen Frolichs: Pretty dope.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, like, I don't, well I'm imagining now like, you know, a grandfather's pipe, I guess you have all sorts of pipes. This could be more like

Koen Frolichs: a bong, bong shape

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: or something. Yeah, I don't know. Then also a, a general about the writing. You know, we said that he, I said earlier that he writes it in, I think in the first or second episode that he writes the books in like three months.

That's actually not the case. It's more like, I think in this one he finishes it in mid-April or something. Starts 1st of September, so it takes about eight months to write it and then has four months of like being a normal person again. Yeah. And he also does go back over stuff. Yeah, I think he writes like everything.

He pretty much writes it like from beginning to end. He well completely writes from beginning to end [01:11:00]and I think when he is like pretty much finished it, he'll go over it again and like. Some stuff. Things. That kind stuff. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah. Okay. Makes sense.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But yeah. So here's, here's one writing day, which I think was more towards the ends.

Total number of words in the day. 2,173. Total mugs of coffee. 19 total.

Koen Frolichs: Jesus

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Camels being the cigarettes. 26. No texts. No calls.

Koen Frolichs: Damn.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So that's how you write a good book. You drink 90 cups of coffee, smoke, fucking Christ. I think a pack of cigarette. I dunno how many is in one. I think it's like

Koen Frolichs: 1920.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: 1920.

Sounds like I've packet.

Koen Frolichs: Damn.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. It had taken him 222 days to write from beginning. So basically it's, yeah, it's more than I said initially.

Koen Frolichs: And he sticks to like regular working days, just like eight hours a day or,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: uh, I think more or less. Anyway, this is the last quote I had from the book.

Okay. I think, yeah, if you are, if you are interested in the books, uh, in the, in the Richer books, I think it's a, it's a [01:12:00] fun little read about how this thing is made. You know, it's like a behind the scenes kind of thing.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, and there's lots of, lots of more quotes, but, uh, yeah, I'm not gonna read them all that now because some of them I think are more relevant to very specific people or take too long to set up.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. So I guess this is now the ending, right? Coming to an end. How was your first, obviously, I dunno whether you've done something of this before, but I hadn't done before I started doing this for my podcast.

Koen Frolichs: No.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: How was your book club experience without insulting me?

Koen Frolichs: Well, I mean, I assume you've cut out all my insults to watch you.

Um, you'll, you'll be cutting those out. Um, there were plenty. Um Oh,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: oh no, I'll copy them and just paste them in randomly.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, exactly. Um, no, I kind of, I mean it's, it's a different experience, right? I think it, it really depends also on the book you're doing. Um, I think reacher. We could have done it in less sessions maybe, [01:13:00] and gotten like as much out of it.

I think maybe like the, the a hundred pages

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Per book could have been, um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, for this one, I mean, yeah, because there's no con, there's no subplot basically in here.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind like this, you know, just

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: to discuss almost.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Um, but I mean, I, I thought it was fun. It was fun for me to like kind of be, have like a natural break in there.

Right. Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: a break in what,

Koen Frolichs: in, in my reading 'cause

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Right. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Right. So, and like, and also like having to reflect. 'cause I have to like, talk about it a little bit. Yeah. No. So I thought it was kind of fun.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, I, I always find, always the, the two terms I've done it that. There's probably no book or no.

As well as the books I've read for this book club. Right.

Koen Frolichs: Probably,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. You really get to, especially because, you know, I also write the summaries, which doesn't take a lot of time, but just forces you to think about it once or twice more than you usually do. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: yeah, yeah, yeah. Normally just move on.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, exactly.

And now I have to remember the names of people. 'cause otherwise my summary is [01:14:00] gonna be all over the place. Um,

Koen Frolichs: sure. Yeah. So, so, so one thing I, I mean, I mean, you know, this, um, like quite parallel, right before we did the reacher, I started reading the June, June books.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Mm-hmm.

Koen Frolichs: And I basically raised through the first three, I think I did a book a week or, or even less, I think like a book a week on average for the first three,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: which like 500 pages or something, right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Like ish. I think like plus probably, yeah. I think the, the second one, the Messiah is a bit shorter, but the rest are all like 500 plus. And now I was wondering like, do I know these books as well? You know? 'cause I think they're like a lot more dense. Um, you know, and there's a lot more underlying teams and everything.

Um. Do I know them as well as Rich or like, or like, you know, because I went through them so fast, like, um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, yeah.

Koen Frolichs: Did I just, like, did I absorb anything or just like, um, um, use it. So, yeah, I don't know. I guess I'll never know. But I think

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: the answer is, I mean, it should be fairly clear, right?

Koen Frolichs: Probably yes.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, I think this is, this is a probably un, an unusual [01:15:00] book to do for this book club in a way. Yeah. Um, and I mean, part of also why I chose this one fairly early on is also, you know, we did Crime and Punishment the first time. I'm gonna have like, individual book discussions about Brave New World soon.

Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And, uh, lots of other like, you know, highbrow books or whatever. I think it's important to not just, you know, to also have this kind of stuff in there.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: In part, 'cause it reflects also what I read. I occasion, uh, occasionally. It's fairly regular, but not super frequent. We'll read these kind of books.

Koen Frolichs: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: The interesting thing I think here is also that the language, for example, of the reacher books is unique and it has its own style, less so in this than in others. And later he's much, he, he really has a, a different language, a different way of writing sentences and that kind of stuff and mm-hmm.

It can often seem like Lee Child just doesn't hurt. Right. It can often seem like he's just a poor writer. But I think when you actually [01:16:00] first, I mean that's the interesting thing about the other book, this reaches had nothing, um, you realize how much thought actually goes into each sentence.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And how.

You know, especially with Pulp Fiction, there's all these people who basically published first drafts and, you know, never looked over it and it's just terrible.

Koen Frolichs: Sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But here you actually, you know, you see him in the beginning really going over certain words and what the implications of the words are and that kind of stuff.

And so I think it's, you know, even though it's this kind of entertainment book or whatever, I think, yeah. I mean that's what I find interesting in general. Like even if you wanna do something that maybe isn't supposed to be the greatest thing ever, it's basically as much work.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um,

Koen Frolichs: sure.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I dunno, maybe not, not exactly, but

Koen Frolichs: No.

Yeah. But I mean, to, to put out quality work you still need to put in time. Right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, I think like, one thing that's clear from this is even if you don't like this kind of book, or even if you think the writing style is bad or it's [01:17:00] unrealistic or whatever, like it's good plotted, right? It's well plotted.

Like the, the, the action points something, there's always something happening.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It all connects in the end pretty much. Sure. Um, yeah, and that's just a different difficulty I guess than writing fancy books that uh, that have deep meaning, whatever that is.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. I guess that's also just a question, right?

It's also what the public kind of scribes to it. Right. We could probably like read into Jack Richer, like, oh, you know, the new police station. I dunno. Yeah. I guess maybe not,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but you could. No, but like, the one thing I think that you can really read into this is the, what I mentioned earlier, the one thing about him being in the moment and that kinda stuff.

I think there's a lot, like if, if everyone was more like that, you know, people would have much less prob, far fewer problems just because you're so much in the zone and you are

Koen Frolichs: probably Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, like it did [01:18:00] something I, yeah, I said earlier I wish I had more of this kind of calm, collected. I'll deal with this.

Sure. I'll figure it out.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Don't need to worry about it. Yeah,

Koen Frolichs: probably. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And that's why I read all the books and I'm still not as cool. It's not working good.

Koen Frolichs: I'm so sorry, Ben. Yeah. We'll, we'll make a step. I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: also still shorter. That didn't work either, than Richard.

Koen Frolichs: What's going on? Damn,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I, no, I still not as tall as him.

I, I'm not far, but there's still some an inch, two inches or whatever that I'm missing.

Koen Frolichs: I mean, I, I thought you looked good in heels. Um, thanks. I know I wasn't supposed to see this and everything, but I thought you looked great.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I wasn't the office to be fair. Someone was gonna find out sooner or later anyway.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, yeah. But you just used the office because the mirrors are so good, right?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. In your office. Yeah, exactly. Well, just imagine me in heels. It'd be so tall. Especially the bigger your feet are, the more lift you can get on [01:19:00] it. Right?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah, exactly. That'd be

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: like two meter stools,

Koen Frolichs: sturdy heels, and you would probably like bang into every doorframe, um, which you had,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, in the office I already do, right?

Koen Frolichs: Oh, you do? Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, I don't, I, I duck, I don't literally bang into every door every time I walk.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah. No, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You do. Yeah. He's smart enough to duck, um, people

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: usually,

Koen Frolichs: usually.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway. Um, I

Koen Frolichs: think on that, um, I think that's a

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: great ending. Yes. On this note that has nothing to do with anything.

That's the end of our discussion of. Killing flaw. I ke I still want to keep it killing time. You wanna call it that? Um, same as with crime punishment, I kept wanting to say pride and prejudice. I think it's just because it sounds similar. Crime and punishment. Pride and prejudice. Yeah.

Koen Frolichs: It's the same. Um, rhythm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Rhythm and this, and you know, two nouns and here, whatever. But yeah. So this has been our discussion of killing Flo by Leach child. [01:20:00] Um, yeah. As with Crime and Punishment, I have to say. If you're still listening, um, I'm sorry.

Koen Frolichs: What's wrong with you?

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I'm sorry. You are in this place. Yeah. In your life. This is been five hours.

It's quicker to read it than to listen to.

Koen Frolichs: How bored are you? I'm really sorry. Um, I hope things will get better for you soon.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I mean, I feel like I don't want it to be, uh, do this too often and be patronizing to the audience at the end of a, of a book discussion. I just piss everyone off, but I, I, yeah.

Um,

Koen Frolichs: I think after

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: five hours I wish you all the best.

Koen Frolichs: You have become part of us and we can patronize you. Um, that's fine.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I will, I will do more. I I will do, I dunno whether cool wants to join or whether I invite him, but I would do, I will definitely do more book clubs in the future. I dunno, I

Koen Frolichs: think I'm not gonna be invited.

Um,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, you did some good background research.

Koen Frolichs: That is true.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Some also good. A bit weird. [01:21:00]

Koen Frolichs: I did that in the beginning to keep to people listening. Ben, I'm a professional. Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: They're like, what is cool? Gonna Google next?

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: What's gonna,

Koen Frolichs: and then I let them wait for like session three and four and with five I come back, I deliver.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Exactly.

Koen Frolichs: Yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Anyway. Enough delivering

Koen Frolichs: enough delivery.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Uh,

Koen Frolichs: bye

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: bye. Thank you.

30. Book club: Killing Floor by Lee Child, chapters 27-end

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